Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 13, 1992 TAG: 9203130466
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I just shot my friend in the head," he said. "I didn't know the gun was loaded."
With those short, painful words, the teen-ager defined a growing problem in the Roanoke Valley. Kids with guns are gnawing away at the future of our communities.
Thursday's newspaper read like a scorecard of that tragedy.
A 15-year-old faces capital murder charges after a man was killed with a pistol during a drug deal.
A 14-year-old faces malicious wounding charges after a man was shot in the head with a pistol after an argument.
The circumstances that led to those two incidents make it easy for the community to explain away the problem. The Salem incident is nowhere near as clear-cut.
Salem police Sgt. Mickey Reed said the shooting was the culmination of teen-age mischief and deadly coincidence.
"It was a tragic situation on both sides," he said.
The grandmother of one of the boys had gone to the hospital to visit his grandfather, who had suffered a heart attack.
The boys, who were left alone at home, went to a cabinet where the gun was stored. The grandparents thought it was locked.
It wasn't.
And although the grandmother called home from time to time, the boys were sitting at her dining-room table, playing with the high-powered pistol.
One of them noticed that the hammer was pulled back, and attempted to jiggle the safety so he could uncock the 9mm pistol.
Suddenly, the gun fired, driving a bullet through the other boy's arm and into the left side of his head before it came out the right side. Police found the bullet embedded in a wall.
Now, the boy is fighting for his life in Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
Police are fighting to make some sense of why more guns are falling into the hands of children.
"The case is tragic," said Salem Lt. James Bryant. "We don't like working cases like this. We work them in a professional manner, even though we have feelings like any other human beings."
And all too often, police officers are left alone on the firing line in a futile attempt to hold together shattered young lives.
It is a position that no one wants, but everyone is willing to criticize. Where are the critics on the issue of kids and guns?
The reality is that part of our community is submerged in an environment of poverty, drugs, guns and violence. And the community as a whole either will deal with the problem, or suffer the consequences when it spills over into their neighborhoods.
If effective leadership does not come - or cannot come - from government leaders, then it needs to come from the good men and women of Roanoke Valley.
It must come soon.
If you don't believe it, ask the cop on the beat. He or she knows.
Or raise another glass to indifference.
Our children are dying.
AUTHOR Ron Brown is the law enforcement reporter for this newspaper.
by CNB